Crews from King’s Lynn and Terrington attended the fire on the ground floor of the Old Shore Boat Inn at Tilney St Lawrence, near the junction of Lynn Road and the main A47.

A Norfolk fire service spokesman said that the alarm was raised at around 4pm. Firefighters using breathing apparatus and hose reel jets took an hour to put out the fire.

They then employed a thermal imaging camera to check that there were no hotspots remaining in the building, along with a fan to ventilate the smoke. Tonight, it was not clear how badly the building had been damaged by the fire.

Home Guard detachments from Tilney, Terrington, Clenchwarton and West Lynn were based at the pub during the Second World War. They practised firing Sten guns in a nearby field.